Dave Davies

Did you get any sense that Linda McMahon ever came to see the value of what the Department of Education staff did?

And you're right that maybe because she really hasn't learned so much about it, she at times sounds less than coherent in discussing it.

You want to give us an example or two of that?

She misread it.

She simply misread the term.

We need to take another break here.

Let me reintroduce you.

We are speaking with Zach Helfand.

He is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

His new article is The Executor, How Professional Wrestling Prepared Linda McMahon for Trump's Cabinet.

We'll continue our conversation in just a moment.

This is Fresh Air.

One of the things you write about is the department's assault on elite universities.

This was an interesting episode.

There was a joint task force to combat anti-Semitism.

That was not part of the education department, but it was sort of a vehicle for this.

Tell us about how that worked and how Linda McMahon was involved.

So a lot of this came out of the campus protests after the October 7th attack and the Israeli initiative in Gaza, right?

Right.

You're right that Linda McMahon, in pursuing this, had an ability to bluster transparently while keeping a straight face, kind of something that she learned in the world of wrestling entertainment, that this was useful in negotiations.